9 Reasons The Division Is Ubisoft’s Best Video Game In Years

5. It Totally Works As A Memorable Single Player Experience

Hey, I was skeptical going in, too. The simple fact is, if you really don't want to do any of the 'team up and fight the bad guys' stuff, you don't have to. There's still a good 20 hour-strong campaign of story missions that feature incredibly well-detailed environments, goals ranging from establishing comm links to vaporising rooms of enemies, and a levelling system that means if the mission you're looking at is too high level, you need only venture out and get stuck into the side missions and encounters instead. The way the story is set up, you're but one soldier out in the field, attempting to wrestle control of the capital back from the various gangs on its streets. This means it feels totally 'natural' to become a makeshift John McClane and clear out a construction facility by yourself, or becoming a more technically-advanced SWAT team, popping shots off in tandem with a fire squad. Thanks to the dynamic multiplayer options, you can easily try a mission with companions backing you up and sharing your abilities if you like, but at no point is it forced on you. Enemy forces and damage allowances are tweaked based on who's in the mission, so providing you stick to the minimum level each mission suggests, you can totally play the entire thing solo. The only downside is that if you go down there's no one to pick you back up, but as with any other single-player game, dying just respawns you back at the beginning to try again.